French Strike Cuts 11,235 MW in Nuclear Capacity

Jan 16, 2009

Reuters - The French CGT union said on Thursday a 24-hour strike in the
nuclear sector had cut 11,235 megawatts (MW), or 17 percent of the nuclear
capacity, by 1530 GMT, pushing intraday power prices higher.
The union warned that if the management of state-backed nuclear
energy operator EDF did not listen to the demands of the workers, who are
striking over pay and working conditions, those actions would be repeated.

The strike was taking place in 17 of France's 19 nuclear power
plants, the official said.

Workers at the Golfech (southwest) and Penly (northwest) plants
had voted not to take part in the protest, he added.

"Workers had cut 11,235 MW of nuclear power capacity by 1530
GMT," the official said, adding a union meeting on Friday morning would
determine whether similar actions would be repeated before a planned public
sector strike on Jan. 29.

EDF declined to comment on the drop in power capacity but
insisted supplies to customers would not be affected.

"With such a strong turnout, EDF's management has to react to the
demands made by the staff," the CGT said.

The strike had pushed French intraday power prices higher, one
London-based trader said, adding the Genscape tool, which estimates
real-time power production, confirmed a high outage rate in French
reactors.

"This is one of the highest outage rates we have seen in the last
couple of years," the trader said.

The strike coincided with cold weather in France, with national
weather forecaster Meteo France showing temperatures at between one
and five degrees Celsius.

The union official said EDF would start asking strikers to stop
cutting capacity at nuclear plants, as French power grid RTE
predicted a peak demand of 86,240 MW at 1800 GMT.